The Coco family tree of the Rivera family

Four generations of the Coco family tree live under one roof in Santa Cecilia. The eldest is Mamá Coco, Miguel’s great-grandmother, who is very old and fragile.^2,1 Her husband Papá Julio has died, and Miguel knows him only from the ofrenda.¹

Their daughter Elena, whom everyone calls Abuelita, is Miguel’s grandmother and the one who keeps the ban on music.^2,1 She has three children. Enrique is Miguel’s father, and his wife Luisa is Miguel’s mother.¹ Enrique’s brother Berto works in the family shoemaking business and is married to Carmen, and their children Abel and Rosa are Miguel’s cousins.^2,1 The third child of Abuelita is Gloria, Miguel’s aunt.¹

At the bottom of the Coco family tree stands Miguel, twelve years old and the first Rivera in generations who wants to play music.^1,2 He has taught himself guitar from an old tape about the singer Ernesto de la Cruz, in secret from the family.¹ The film never names Abuelita’s husband, so the chart hangs her three children from her alone and leaves the space beside her empty.

A fifth living generation arrives in the epilogue. A year after the Day of the Dead of the story, Miguel shows his new baby sister the family ofrenda.¹ The source list gives her no name, so the chart calls her Baby sister and lets her appear only at the last story point.

When Miguel crosses into the Land of the Dead, he meets the relatives whose photos his family puts out each year. Besides Imelda and Papá Julio, they are Tía Rosita, Tía Victoria and the identical twins Tío Oscar and Tío Felipe, whom one actor voices.^2,1 The chart lets these four appear from the second story point, when Miguel meets them.

The family calls them aunt and uncle, but the sources opened for this page do not say on which branch any of them stands.^1,2 The cast list says only that they are Miguel’s late aunts and his late twin uncles. Some family tree sites online make the twins Imelda’s brothers or make Victoria a daughter of Coco and Julio, and others put them elsewhere. This Coco family tree follows the sources and draws all four apart, without parent lines, and its note says why.

The dead in the film need the living to remember them. A relative whose photo stands on an ofrenda can visit the living family on the Day of the Dead, and Imelda cannot visit that night because Miguel has taken her photo from the frame.¹ The two colours of the chart mark this divide. Orange is the living family in Santa Cecilia and purple is the Land of the Dead, and Mamá Coco changes from one to the other in the last story point.

Ernesto de la Cruz is not part of the Coco family tree, and the chart says so under his name. For the first half of the film Miguel believes he is. The man in the torn photo holds a guitar that Miguel recognises as Ernesto’s, and Miguel decides that the famous singer must be his great-great-grandfather.¹ On the chart a gold dashed arrow runs from Miguel to Ernesto, and it is labelled as the boy’s hero worship.

Miguel goes to Ernesto’s tomb to take that guitar, and when he strums it the living can no longer see him.¹ To return home before sunrise he needs a blessing from his family, and Imelda will give one only if he gives up music. He refuses and goes looking for Ernesto instead, with Héctor as his guide, since Héctor once performed with the singer.¹

At the cenote the truth comes out. Ernesto poisoned Héctor long ago and took his guitar and his songs, and he has Miguel and Héctor thrown into the cenote to keep that secret.¹ There Héctor says that his daughter is called Coco, and Miguel understands that Héctor is the man in the photo. From this story point the chart gives Héctor his name, the line from Ernesto to Héctor turns into a dark red arrow of murder, and the line from Miguel to Ernesto turns into enmity.

A square is a man and a circle is a woman. A double line is a couple, and the line that drops from it leads to their children. Abuelita Elena is the one parent drawn alone, because the film never names her husband. A cross on a symbol marks a death, and most of the top three rows carry one, since they are the dead of the ofrenda.

The coloured lines tell the story between people. The dotted grey line from Coco to Héctor is the secret she keeps all her life, the torn piece of the photo that shows her father’s face, and at sunrise its label changes to say that she remembers him.¹ The teal arrows from Imelda and from Héctor to Miguel are the family blessing that sends him home.

After the ending, Coco’s letters from Héctor prove that Ernesto stole his songs, and Héctor is remembered as the songwriter.¹ The chart records that in its last story point, where Ernesto is disgraced and Héctor’s photo stands on the ofrenda. To make a family tree of another film, open this chart in the editor or start from the story charts. The symbols are set out in the genogram symbols, and the Madrigal family of another animated film is drawn on the Encanto genogram.